Passion is often ignited when we spot someone whose features are similar to our own. The visual portion of the brain signals our unconscious and we are innately drawn to people with features like ours. In earlier times, people relied on introductions by friends and relatives, who perhaps subconsciously recognized facial similarities between people and decided to initiate matchmaking. Familiarity creates an instant bond when people meet for the first time.
In the twenty-first century, with unprecedented mobility, people no longer can rely on friends and relatives for introductions because they are not nearby. Just as for many other searches, people have turned to the internet to find potential dates. Online dating is one of the earliest applications developed for the Web. Online dating is third in the internet's paid content category, behind online gaming and music, with approximately a billion dollar business annually in the United States alone. As many as one in five singles date someone they met on line, with many marrying as a result.
Currently there are over 1,000 online dating sites, with the top 5 sites controlling eighty percent of the market. None are perceived as “having the answer” and it is suggested that there is a high level of dissatisfaction with existing dating site. Despite this level of frustration by users, forty-four percent of Americans believe they have a better chance meeting a partner online than in a bar or club.
Face matching software is well known in the art, generally relying on a user selecting specific facial features for matching or by ranking the results by which features match the queried face. Others have developed a matching service based on matching faces with an idealized facial profile determined by the user or matching to a celebrity in order to purchase accessories and fashions worn by the celebrity to enhance the visual similarity. Using this matching service, others have proposed a social networking website for linking people based on their faceprint.
Others use visual data such as a photo to allow a user to sort through known contacts and determine the nature of the relationship with the contact based on the photos and metadata associated with the photos. The system does not rely on facial features to quantify the relationship but other factors in the photo. The system does not help the user to establish a new contact but only sorts through the user's known online associates.
None of the websites and services combines matching facial features with sorting the matches based on additional biographical data that characterize a user's style, values and personality. None of services associate facial features of members that are simply familiar without exactly conforming with each other.
While these units may be suitable for the particular purpose employed, or for general use, they would not be as suitable for the purposes of the present disclosure as disclosed hereafter.
In the present disclosure, where a document, act or item of knowledge is referred to or discussed, this reference or discussion is not an admission that the document, act or item of knowledge or any combination thereof was at the priority date, publicly available, known to the public, part of common general knowledge or otherwise constitutes prior art under the applicable statutory provisions; or is known to be relevant to an attempt to solve any problem with which the present disclosure is concerned.
While certain aspects of conventional technologies have been discussed to facilitate the present disclosure, no technical aspects are disclaimed and it is contemplated that the claims may encompass one or more of the conventional technical aspects discussed herein.